Tag Archives: YA Megamix Summer

Weirdos on an island! They have onion breath and the ability to wipe memories. The police are in on it. The pharmacy is in on it. The popular girl who throws beach parties is in on it. Spoiler alert – Your dad is in on it. And yet, the main character managed to find a boyfriend possibility. One thing never changes (and the ancient vampire dude in charge should really be aware of this by now) – summer romance is going to happen. It will end the world someday.

Peregrine’s first summer romance was with Ozymandias. It was cute enough to kill an ancient vampire.

Werewolves have more weaknesses than silver. The teenage werewolf at the center of this novel goes weak in the knees for poetry. One hippie kid writes a wolfy poem and she’s gone. Trying to fit in. Trying to out-flirt the human girls. Trying to prove herself through the overconfidence of being a supernatural beast creature. It doesn’t really work out how she wanted. They’re never ready to know the truth, the ones who say they are lied. Vivian finds out the hard way (the “Did I murder someone last night?” way) that she has to stay with her own kind and marry some older dude with a motorcycle that also almost dated her mom.

“One’s place in the hierarchy of any group is earned, and not through messing around with humans.” Pammy was queen of my herd for quite a while, she accepted her place with dignity and didn’t rebel…but she was like three years old at that time, an age of certain wisdom for a guinea pig. Also, we cry over all the guinea pigs if we need to in this house.

It used to be much easier to make intimidating phone calls. Just ask the Golden State Killer. Or Karen in this book. Of course, when you’re intimidating yourself to guilt your boyfriend into staying you don’t even have to make the phone calls; you can just wail and act scared and say you’ve been getting them and your boyfriend will reluctantly stay for a while. Get your shit together, Karen. You’ll never be good enough for a Deadly Women segment at this rate. You’ve got to be patient or maybe just let those hard to reach chips that don’t want to date you anymore go.

Finny is looking for hard to reach chips that fell behind the couch. Chips help with unexpected breakups. Especially freeze dried banana chips.

Oh, Deathkins. Your characters are some doozies, especially in this one where there were so many of them I can’t even remember who is who and I totally read this in this, the year of my herd 2018. Recently I was re-watching the He Man and She Ra movie while painting (Classy. Artist. Me.) and I noticed that everyone kept repeating their relationships to each other – “This is Angella, she’s my mother.” “Let’s save Glimmer’s mother, Queen Angella.” “I wonder what my former pupil, Skeletor, is up to.” “Hello, Skeletor, my former pupil.” “Suck it, Hordak, the teacher who abandoned me.” I may be paraphrasing in that last one, but it was annoying there and would be useful here. There are way too many people in The Cemetery. And Cyndi, the most memorable one, likes “to push people.” She’s rich and bitchy. Her name is perfect. She planned a Hallowe’en party in a cemetery – The cemetery – and then some dude makes the mistake of dying during it. So you could say Cyndi pushed him – put on sunglasses – to death. YEEEAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Okay, maybe it’s not really CSI: Miami quality, but, there’s a possibility that it is. Anyway, so, death, then some more death, and some supernatural stuff and I really thought that it was just going to be a murderous groundskeeper who is tired of those damn kids stomping around in his eroding hilltop cemetery during their oh-so-spooky parties but…it wasn’t.

Finny never gets invited to Ozma’s parties in the cemetery. She doesn’t think he’s serious enough for hide and seek. Someday he will have his revenge.

We have reached the last of the Point Horror 13-based short story collections. This one felt way longer to me, perhaps because there are a bunch of the same authors in the second one and this one and none of the multi-title whizzbang Point authors I’m used to are represented. Not even Diane Hoh. The stories were longer than in the other two collections, they needed a big dose of the old razzle-dazzle and honestly, I got pissed that I was bored. I don’t want to be bored by short stories. For one thing, they’re short so it seems like that shouldn’t happen. For two, most of the time when I dive in to a Horror anthology, I find weird things and gross things and surprising things and zazz. Not so much here. So, with that very inspiring introduction, let’s get on with it.

Ozymandias was the smarter one, so he was always waiting for Danger Crumples to realize that there was less zazz present than necessary.

“Anjelica’s Room” – Laurence Staig – It did have a promising start. A couple arguing about painting, well, never heard that before… I meant that “promising” thing, anyway, a couple who don’t really like each other that much are trying to paint a small cottage and one of the rooms has really ugly brown wallpaper all over the walls. The lying-by-omission male half of the couple leaves the female half and her giant amount of anxiety alone and the room pulls her in and it gets worse from there in a good and gory way. Phew.

“Foxgloves” – Susan Price – This entry was not as interesting as “The Cat-Dogs” from the last collection. It’s hard for me to envision a hetero teenage boy that wouldn’t just follow some ghostly seductive chick into wherever. Especially if he’d just had a bit of a break up with his girlfriend…that’s the most likely time they just wander off the path with ghostly seductive chicks. I mean, geez.

Danger and Ozy basically followed the ladypigs whenever they could. Whenever. It took them forever to calm down around the ladypigs and that’s one more reason I couldn’t suspend my disbelief for “Foxgloves.”

“The Ultimate Assassin” – Malcolm Rose – This just didn’t pack enough punch for me. There’s mild tension, a downer ending, a dog named Chips (I used to know someone named Chips. He was fun but only knew me as “Hey Girl”), and the titular assassin but…it was just okay.

“The Rattan Collar” – Garry Kilworth – Garry with two “r”s has put in some effort here and it’s one of the more interesting stories in the collection. Is the potbellied pig evil? Do I just like this better because there’s some kind of pig in it? The answer to both is no, but, you haven’t read this yet. Uh oh, spoilers.

“Boomerang” – David Belbin – In 1995, this story was prophetic. It seemed so wrong that anyone would go to college, get a solid degree with good marks, and then fail miserably at getting a job and have to move back in with their parents. In the U.S. though, only five years later, it would start getting next to impossible not to become a boomerang. And some of those graduates didn’t try to murder their parents- a tradition that lives on to this day.

Danger and Ozy never tried to murder me while we lived in my mom’s attic. They did order me out of my own bedroom while they were exploring though. It was very insulting, but also funny.

“The Delinquent” – Maresa Morgan – In my current job I am sometimes looked at as though I have just walked in from juvie and am smoking in the corner. I’m not a fan of it and this is the only place I’ve been looked at that way so consistently, but at least I know I’m not as awful as the delinquent in this story. She gets what she deserves; I know I deserve to be recognized for who I actually am, not just the differences between me and the rest of the office. I’m quite good at what I do and have the personalized messages from patrons to prove it.

“The Ghost Trap” – Lisa Tuttle – The girl in this story goes to a haunted house she heard of because of a story. The author of the story is totally living in the house and using some Scooby Doo methods to entrap victims. I have to say, if anyone came to my house (which is not haunted) specifically because of my work I still wouldn’t answer the door because that’s intimidating and it’s possible to see me in public and accost me that way instead. Or don’t accost me. It’s better if no one gets accosted. I’m usually selling something or hunting books down if you see me in public, feel free to distract me, I promise I won’t murder you or pull off my mask to reveal that I own the old boarded up amusement park.

“Close Cut” – Philip Gross – Uh oh, we have a situation here that involves World War II and slivovic. World War II angst and the question of what one is to do when one finds a Nazi (a real, time appropriate one, not just the insecure emulating jackasses from the now time) living near them.

“Grandma” – Colin Greenland – I know that it can be very complicated trying to assist the elderly, especially if they have memory issues or habitually set things on fire. If this household just had some decent books, I bet everybody would’ve gotten along much better and maybe Grandma wouldn’t have minded being locked in her room so much. What am I saying? There’s no way that keeps anyone with any of their faculties remotely happy. But books would help.

Ozy and Danger certainly liked their excursions outside their houses. They wanted to explore and be finicky and demanding and super cute and their grandma totally let them.

“Vampire in Venice” – John Gordon – Here we are in Venice again. Ah, Venice. A place where British girls can argue about who is more attractive and/or stupid to be mooning over vampires. Hint – your friendship isn’t strong if the one the vampire likes more chooses you as her first meal.

“Picking Up the Tab” – Stan Nicholls – Money horror. This just doesn’t have that much impact after you’ve been through the nonsensical labyrinth of trying to afford what you need without making enough and that’s kind of the norm for my generation. Being messed with monetarily is never a surprise. Being valued and paid accordingly is.

“Evidence of Angels” – Graham Masterton – Here he goes again with the sentimental and not particularly horrific. It’s a bit familiar here, after all, having an annoying baby brother named Toby is familiar to everyone who saw Labyrinth. The unfortunate aspect here is that angels do not resemble David Bowie. Believers have nothing to look forward to.

In lieu of David Bowie, I’ll accept Danger Crumples and Ozymandias leading me to an eternal rest in Pighalla, which I made up but also happens to be where I belong after death.

“Hospital Trust” – Dennis Hamley – Again, what happens in this story is kind of normal now in the United States. A doctor that several patients haven’t liked (in the U.S. this part would be played by the insurance company, the ones who get to determine how much care you really get) sending them somewhere they shouldn’t be for substandard care and/or murder. Healthcare really is a right and not a privilege. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise.

If there is anything that the 1989 Dan Haggerty Christmas classic Elves has taught us, it’s that working in the mall on Christmas will lead to a Nazi plot coming to fruition through terrible puppetry. Take that, underemployed seasonal humans!

Slay Bells follows a similar line except that one must replace “terrible puppetry” with “really stupid reasons for killing people.” You under-priced a pie! Death is your Christmas gift! I get that he wasn’t happy about the mall being built on the farm he was supposed to inherit, but I’m not so sure the homicidally insane are going to be successful farmers anyway. It takes a different set of instincts, although being really committed to the land is definitely important.

Guinea pigs have many different sets of instincts. Mortemer’s told him he should re-design Murderface’s ear for Christmas. Not what she had in mind.

At last Deathkins has found the secret to dealing with her whim to have too many characters – trap them on an island! It totally makes sense for high school kids to be jet setting away to a private island during the holiday break! They don’t need to see their families, they need to please Djuna because she’s popular (kind of) and smokes in the bathroom and invited people who used to be couples, are currently couples, and the new kid…and because her family owns an island but doesn’t supervise their daughter. They let the “help” do that.

Of course, like all decent Santa-based games involving deception, there’s kidnapping and teenage insult marathons. Look, Neal, nobody likes you. You were a crappy boyfriend and you’re a crappy houseguest too- in the hole with you! Now let’s all watch the tide come in.

Horace, Pere, Merri, and Danger are not up for teenager games in the winter beyond musical blankets.

Merricat would’ve intimidated Tom Noonan out of trying to impregnate her with the antichrist. She was the kind of pig that could do that. She’s also the kind of pig that looks awesome on a throw pillow.

This one started reeeeaaallll slow. I was like, “This is a slasher film abbreviated into book form for young’uns, set the scene quickly,” but it definitely sped up eventually. Psychic twins (one is more psychic than the other), a Poinsettia on each body, a town weirdo with clues, a killer who managed to remind me of Black Christmas, young love, and foreshadowing for that time the slug slowly blorped out of Barb’s mouth- there was a lot in The Christmas Killer and it turned out pretty decent. Definitely worth reading, in July or otherwise.

Rule of the road number one – If the people who want to pick you up when you’re running away from home are named something even remotely close to “Poppy Corn” or “Freedom Jack,” don’t get in the freaking car. Really, rule number one should be “Don’t get in the car.” Pike certainly does have a way with names, but of course, so do I. This is the first book of his that inspired me to parody him with Danger Crumples in the roles of author and cover model (and if there was any text to go with my painting, subject). I love a road trip story and this is certainly a trippy one…Poppy Corn. Really. I don’t think I’d want to spend my runaway time with Poppy Corn. Or Freedom Jack. Usually the dudes that are focused so hard on their “freedom” are total jerks. Teresa the main character should’ve thought of that.

Danger Crumples never wanted to run away, so he didn’t have to worry about the rules of the road, he did know how to call shotgun though, it was impressive once I figured out what he meant by that particular whistle.

Moving in to the house next door is a very perilous thing to do. It doesn’t matter who you’re next door to – paranoid Tom Hanks in a bathrobe (I can’t remember his character’s name in The Burbs), Gladys Kravitz, Charley Brewster, Valerie and Courtney…whomever, it’s going to end up with somebody getting all up in your business. And if that business is hiding out from your brother, Night World patriot Ash Redfern, well, this is a Night World book so he may just get distracted by finding his soul mate because she read Pride and Prejudice and give a dramatic speech long enough for you to go back on the lam.

Peregrine and Merricat are on the lookout for rogue werewolves, vampires, goats, warlock Julian Sands, and lovelorn teenagers.